The Kaleidoscope
by OnTheImportanceOfLungs
Summary: Rewrite abandoned for original. I flipflop more than Hilary Clinton, apparently.
1. The Eyes of Misery

**Kaleidoscope**

There were two kinds of people who knew Lily Evans. There were acquaintances. Those included her husband James, her mentor Filius Flitwick, and her favorite, Headmaster Dumbledore. They knew her on a professional level, and sometimes, on a personal level, that painted her as a beautiful woman with a flowing red mane, a shapely face that most referred to as beautiful and bottle green eyes that could see into your soul.

Of course, those who knew her truly knew that she _could_, in fact, see into your soul. Every little motion you made, every twitch of the lip, or widening pore was read with perfect clarity, and, at a moment's notice, could be used against you. In a simple conversation about bakeries, she could divine which of your loved ones you cared about the most, what your favorite color was, and why you didn't want your spouse to know exactly what happened during your quests to fix the plumbing next door.

This group of people, naturally, were quite tight knit. How could they not be? In a single conversation, Lily would know if you were a traitor to her cause or not, and would destroy you if you were. She moved at uncanny speeds, and knew the counter to anything you threw.

There were no traitors, of course.

To some, such as Remus Lupin, it came as a relief when she died taking down the greatest evil of modern times, the Dark Lord Voldemort.

To others, such as Severus Snape, the love of their life had gone out like their only candle in the winter night, and, in subsequent years, only managed to keep themselves warm with memories of her.

"Who are you placing the boy with?", asked Severus with an urgent whisper, his long, hooked nose bobbing up and down as he shook in sorrow.

"Harry's only remaining relatives will receive him", said Dumbledore.

Snape glared and, for a moment, entertained the idea of telling Dumbledore exactly who Lily was, exactly what she had done, and exactly how she had fooled all of her acquaintances.

He wanted to tell Albus Dumbledore about the true nature of Lily's eyes, and why she had been a once-in-a-generation genius.

But he didn't. While Lily was dead, she lived on in his heart. In fact, he was tempted to quote the old Headmaster's inane platitudes about how "loved ones never leave us", but his more pragmatic side refrained from such hollow words even as his neurons fired.

"The boy..."

"He has his mother's eyes", Dumbledore said solemnly.

Snape nearly choked. Could the old man possibly know? His Occlumenic shields tightened.

"They are the most beautiful shade of green I have ever seen, even after so many years", said Dumbledore as he stopped speaking and began walking on memory lane.

Dumbledore's hands ran through his beard. "He'll be shown the proper love of a family, without all the glory that would come from being the Boy-Who-Lived and Lord Potter."

Snape firmly nodded. In absence of Lily, Dumbledore made the best decisions. A distant third would be his tertiary master, Lord Voldemort, who was also gone, though less permanently.

**Kaleidoscope**

He didn't know what he had done to deserve it. He was just three years old, and he had managed to read _The Cat in the Hat_ before Dudley. Shouldn't he be getting candy like Dudley always did?

He was no stranger to pain. Sometimes, when he was helping Aunt Petunia pull up the weeds in the garden, his hands would catch on rocks, and they'd hurt.

But this was the first time he anticipated pain so thoroughly.

In the seconds before his uncle's fist hit him, he thought back on a word that his aunt had told him the meaning to.

There had been a play advertised in the Telegraph, called Les Misérables, and he didn't understand why there were funny slash over an e, and his aunt told him it was in French.

Harry knew his existence was wholly... Miserable.

In a flash, a red haze crept over the word, and his uncle looked to be moving through molasses. Harry almost forgot to duck as he examined a little strand of white that connected him to his aunt, and his aunt to the rest of his family and the house.

Vernon's fist slammed into the wall behind Harry's chair, dislocating his wrist and denting the plaster. Harry stared at Vernon with no small amount of anger, wondering exactly what the fist would have done to him if it had met his face.

His expression was nothing compared to the shock and revulsion in the face of Vernon and the abject fear in the face of Petunia, for they were staring into orbs of crimson as opposed to bottle green now. A lazy black mark spun in orbit within the demonic-looking eyes, faintly tracing the general area which would have been the rims of Harry's irises.

Of the three, two had seen the eyes of a demon, and the other had seen the eyes of her dead sister, capable of controlling even her thoughts with just a stare.

While the Eyes didn't take much of Harry's power to maintain, he barely had any to begin with, and thus, collapsed.

Vernon quickly walked briskly towards where he kept his illegal handgun, the only slight on his conformity, but Petunia shook her head.

Vernon opened his mouth to retort, but couldn't find the words when he realized the sheer despair in his wife's eyes. He grunted and threw the unconscious boy into the cupboard under the stairs, which housed the remains of a small mattress and a broken crib.

**Kaleidoscope**

Through trial and error, he learned that his Eyes were products of some sort of devilry. He was never religious, but the descriptions of demons when he attended church with his Anglican relatives lent credence to his thoughts.

Demons supposedly suffered all of the time. Harry, who was capable of picking up slices of people's worst emotions as if they were his, suffered every time he laid eyes on another human being.

Demons supposedly had the capability to control people's minds, hinging on the strength of their will. Harry could easily control children under the age of ten and, with slightly more effort when he tried to take over adults, could easily corrupt human beings.

Demons supposedly had supernatural speed and strength and killed mortals for fun. Harry didn't move much quicker when his eyes activated, but it certainly seemed like he had supernatural speed when people attacked him; everyone was just slower.

And he had red and black eyes. That had to mean something, right?

Of course, it had to change again.

He was seven years old when Dudley decided to end his existence with a baseball bat. He was sleeping in his cupboard when the other boy opened the door slowly, and swung his bat with all his might towards Harry's head.

Harry, who had expected a shouting Aunt Petunia, saw the bat coming too late to move out of the way. His eyes burned for a fraction of a second, and the red haze crept over him again, far thicker than it used to be. For many years, it was just a sight red tinge - color was still perceived properly. But now, the world was a majestic spray of blood.

His hand moved through the red goo and caught the bat, even as Dudley opened his mouth to scream.

If Harry had thought Vernon was moving slowly before, it was nothing compared to Dudley now. He could see the vibration of Dudley's cheeks and throat, and he certainly heard the changing pitch of the scream. He could even see a slight blurring effect in the air in front of Dudley, as the sound waves caused it to vibrate several thousand times every second.

He walked past a still screaming Dudley and stared into a mirror.

The single spinning comma mark that rotated about his iris had multiplied into two, set one hundred and eighty degrees apart on the axis.

**Kaleidoscope**

He was a vigilante.

That was the word for it.

He was a vigilante with unique powers, even if they were limited in ways that Superman was not.

He was capable of pushing the self-coined 'demon-energy' to his muscles and veins to move a little bit faster - not fast enough to catch up with his newly upgraded eyes, but it allowed him to do things like jump from roof to roof, and not tire as he ran long distances.

He left Surrey every afternoon for parts of London that were barely policed, and suffered from the epidemics of human nature, and forced their minds away from whatever they did.

He was capable of seeing the Misery those things caused.

He was capable of feeling the Misery those things caused.

He decided that he had become rather withdrawn and morose. To combat such things, he read books on etiquette and crafted a different personality for himself - one that didn't alienate the people he saved.

He killed.

He killed drug dealers. He killed other killers. And he killed rapists. He hated the last category the most, because much of what they did resulted in Misery that was worse than death, for both their victim, and for him. He never forgot a thing he saw. He would never forget the feeling of having himself torn open, or being slowly carved into pieces.

He killed by wrapping his fists up with demonic energy, and plunging them into chests. Already, people were looking for serial killers. He had been caught several times, but his eyes were capable of bewitching even large groups of people at once, and he always got away.

He was walking down his normal route in East End when he heard a sound that had been burned into his mind. It was a shrill cry of misery, one that no nine-year old should have understood. But Harry had seen the worst experiences of a hundred thousand men and women in the poorest part of London, and he knew it well.

It was a primal yelp, one of the wounded, the defeated, the destroyed. The aural afterthought of someone who thought they were beyond help. He was enraged, as words pounded down like hammers into his mind. _No one should be subjected to this._

He was too far. Too far to stop what was going to happen. They had surrounded her - they were over a hundred feet away. He couldn't help her. Couldn't... _Could_. His eyes burned again, and he was seized with a familiar itch in his pupils.

The world only showed in red now. Everything was of perfect clarity, and with a huge burst of demonic energy, he appeared next to the group of men.

A prepubescent fist snapped out and collapsed a windpipe, and a man gurgled as he choked to death.

Pandemonium filled the air, but he wasn't done.

An elbow found its way to a nose, destroying it, and sending bits of cartilage rocketing into this man's brain. The man twisted a final time and fell face first, away from him, a hand clutching the fatal wound as the man expired.

The girl screamed, a raw catharsis of disbelief. But the relief was evident in her eyes, her partially naked form hidden in the shadows.

He didn't stop. A finger slid into the soft tissue behind another man's ear and, even as he fell to the ground, burbling and choking on his own blood, a heavy kick had been aimed for the last man's solar plexus, snapping the lowest rib and driving it his heart.

The efficiency was brutal.

The girl gasped, in some odd combination of shock, horror, relief, surprise, fear, and awe, but the boy was already gone.

She, too, ran away. The crime was never solved, but he had gained yet another ability. He was now capable of predicting things moments before they happened.

**Kaleidoscope**

Demons could also speak to snakes.

He figured it out very quickly soon after the third form of his eyes manifested. He had been walking through the park when he heard a sibilant hissing, and he discovered a snake he named Ovid.

Ovid was his only friend. While Ovid wasn't very bright - the little snake was both a cultist of some sort and very dogmatic in the simplest things, it was the only one who understood Harry.

It was fascinated by Harry's eyes, now each containing three comma marks, claiming that it was a gift from the Great Basilisk, which had the ability to both kill and turn things into stone with its eyes. Harry wondered who, or what, had told the impressionable snake stories of the Greek Myth of Medusa...

He knew Ovid for nearly three months, and it had just begun to grow longer when it ventured out of the cupboard where Harry slept on a warm July morning.

"Snake!" Petunia shrieked. Harry's eyes widened in alarm, and he tried to run out of his cupboard as quickly as he could, but the door was stuck.

When he finally smashed it off its hinges with a demonically-charged punch, Ovid lay in two pieces.

His eyes burned like they never did before as he wept.

He stood stock-still as his eyes went in and out of focus, and his tears became little drops of blood that dripped onto his cheek and clothing.

His eyes continued to burn, but he didn't care.

Ovid was gone.

Dead.

Cut in two with a kitchen knife.

His eyes burned.

He had killed Ovid. He should have never let Ovid out of his sight.

His eyes burned.

He had killed Ovid. He should have destroyed the door the first chance he had.

His eyes burned.

He had killed Ovid. He should have never befriended the snake, it wouldn't have died if he didn't.

His eyes burned.

"I've failed you."

Blood continued to drip from his eyes.

He shook himself out of the frozen silence he had assumed and walked mechanically over to the entryway mirror.

An alien, three-petalled flower had appeared in his eye, each petal connected by an ever-thinning line.

And he knew that this held a whole new level of misery, a whole new level of power.

He saw little distortions in time and space. He felt flames building in his right eye, ready to destroy things with impunity. He felt the thoughts and even memories of others in his left eye.

There was even an inexorable power beyond what he already possessed, which was earthy and not entirely his own.

His eyes spun faster than they ever did before, creating a red and black whirl in the mirror. He struggled with exactly what the design was. The little commas were clearly that, but he would need to describe it in another way. He cycled through several words before settling on one that he particularly liked.

"Kaleidoscope."


	2. The Eyes of Magic

**Chapter 2**

Harry stood in front of the mirror for minutes, hours, perhaps even a whole day. None of the other residents of Number Four Privet Drive had the courage to disturb him in that moment, and Petunia didn't even dare go near him. She wouldn't have killed the boy's snake if she had known it was his. She feared him as much as she feared her sister.

A whole day passed before he collapsed in exhaustion, his personally named demonic energies finally running out.

An owl flew through the open door even as his head ducked out mechanically to check for mail, a habit long ingrained within him. He had once sifted through all the mail the Dursleys received, hoping he would be the addressee, but he never truly got mail, though years of doing so had imprinted the action upon his mind.

He glared at the owl, which dropped a letter at his feet.

_To Mr. H. Potter._

He ripped the letter open with more grace than most people could claim to have when they were reading mail, and stared at the page for a millisecond, memorizing everything from the color of the ink to the intentions behind the words.

He was a wizard.

Absurd.

Did wizard describe people capable of using demonic energies? _Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live_. He frowned. There might be people out there, people like him, capable of seeing Misery.

But first, there was an owl staring at him expectantly. Owls, the natural predators of snakes everywhere.

His face twisted as he lost all control.

"Burn." Black flames leaked out of his right Eye at speeds that he could barely follow, and the owl instantly exploded into a cloud of ash.

He pulled out a pen and quickly wrote a 'Yes' on the back of the parchment that the letter came on.

He examined the airs for little rips in space-time with his left eye, and pushed the letter through one of the rips, sending it back to the stated Minerva McGonagall, identifying the Resonance of her name with a stray strand of magic that indicated she had been at Privet Drive once, many years ago.

**Kaleidoscope**

"Albus", came the voice of Professor McGonagall.

"What seems to be the matter, Minerva? Have a lemon drop."

"No thank you", she said distractedly. "I've just come to inform you about the letter of young Harry Potter. It's been sent back with a single word scribbled on the back. It appears that we have forgotten that he grew up with muggles."

"Ah yes, I will tell Filius to take him shopping. I'm sure no harm has befallen the boy", Dumbledore finished rather sternly.

McGonagall nodded. She had been against the idea of sending James and Lily's boy to the girl's relatives, but Dumbledore had been rather insistent about blood protections of sorts.

"What do you think he will be like, Albus?" Minerva finally asked.

"A textbook Gryffindor is my bet. There is too much of his parent's blood running through his veins. James and Lily were the most devoted servants of the Light. If they hadn't died, they would have probably succeeded me."

Snape, who had just walked into the room, choked on the pumpkin juice he had been drinking out of a small flask.

**Kaleidoscope**

"Harry, get the door", said Aunt Petunia, the events of the day before forgotten. Harry absentmindedly pulled it open, his bottle-green eyes glinting in the sunlight.

In front of him stood an intensely short man with a modestly sized white beard and a cheery aura about him. His greatest Misery had been his exile from his people. Harry realized that the man wasn't quite human.

"Are you Harry Potter?" the man squeaked, his long, pointed hat waving about.

"Yes, sir", Harry said, turning his politeness up to eleven.

"I am here to take you shopping for school supplies at Diagon Alley!" the man continued to squeak. "I am Professor Flitwick, the Charms Master of Hogwarts. Your mother was a favorite student of mine!"

"Did my mother have eyes like mine?" Harry wondered.

"Oh, yes she did. They were the exact same shade! I'm surprised you know that!" the man beamed.

Harry frowned. "Did she have a Kaleido-"

"What was that?"

"Never mind", Harry said quietly.

"Well, if you're ready, Mr. Potter", Flitwick exclaimed.

Harry envied the man's sunny disposition.

"Grab my forearm, please!" Harry barely had time to do so before Flitwick apparated to the Leaky Cauldron: the entryway to Diagon Alley. Harry noticed that a point of Demonic Energy in his chest flared.

"Was that-"

"That wasn't teleportation, though it is very similar. Wizards use it to move their particles through the air very, very quickly. It is called apparition. You set a destination, concentrate on it, and decide that you would be there. It's not terribly difficult, but you must wait until your sixth year to learn it, and you must be an adult to get a license."

Harry had done it before. It wasn't the same as pushing his body through one of the rips in space-time that he had learned to create yesterday, but when he truly wanted to, he could traverse currents of demonic energy in the air.

It appeared that 'magic' and his demonic energy _were_ one and the same. A slightly different flavor than the energy produced by his eyes, but the same.

They walked into the bar side by side, and as he appeared, everyone hushed. The women drinking sherry froze with their glasses halfway to their lips. The men with mouthfuls of ale didn't swallow. The bartender gaped open-mouthed.

Harry wondered if it was rehearsed, and they did it every time people walked in, to make them feel important. Then he wondered if it were because they were all dressed as the professor was, and he wasn't. He narrowed his eyes ever so slightly.

Then, all at once, he was swarmed. They all bounded towards him, and he wondered if he should have activated his Kaleidoscope just in case, but all they wanted to do was shake his hand.

A man with a purple turban, sitting on a corner bar stool, was the only one that didn't greet him, instead choosing to look at him shrewdly. Harry doubted he would have noticed if he hadn't had so much practice with his eyes, observing everything in his line of vision and processing it all at once.

Surprisingly, Flitwick walked up to the man. "Harry, this is Professor Quirrell. He will be teaching you Defense Against the Dark Arts."

"P-p-pleased to m-meet you, Mr. P-P-Potter." The shrewd look was gone, replaced by a perfect wide-eyed innocence, and some sort of paranoia. Harry frowned, then decided to use a trick he'd thought of in order to remember everything teachers wrote on the board without freaking them out, or copying the exact way they wrote for hours.

_Misery is my curse_, he thought, very loudly, then closed his eyes immediately, and let the power in his eyes recede.

There was something off with the man. It was almost if there were two different signatures within the man, one of them malignant, and the other one even more so. The less malignant piece of Magic was located above his heart, and the stronger, more evil presence was situated about the back of his head. Harry briefly wondered if the man had been possessed by a demon.

Flitwick thought that Harry's eyes had flashed red for a moment, but then realized there was a low bar light which was a terribly bright red shining down on Harry, and rolled his eyes. There was nothing about this polite child that reminded him of You-Know-Who after all.

"Okay, as much as we would love to stay and talk about the differences between our courses, I must insist that Harry get his books in a timely manner. Good day, Quirinus!" Flitwick walked to the back of the bar, and walked outside with Harry.

Harry stared at the brick wall apathetically. He felt _magic_ all but radiating off of it. Truthfully, it was pretty badly done. His Kaleidoscope saw the magic in every living creature, and could pick out when people were trying to hide their magic, like Professor Flitwick, or when they didn't have much magic, like a bunch of the older woman drinking sherry in the bar. This wall seemed to be shoddily made.

Flitwick tapped the brick wall at several locations, and the wall shifted out of the way to reveal a gleaming marketplace, with shops and vendors hawking their wares and, presumably, other wizards and witches buying, selling, and socializing.

Harry realized that Flitwick was looking at him expectantly, then decided to humor the old man, who had been very patient with his questions so far. He smiled widely (an action which he was unused to, and possibly unsuited to).

Flitwick wasted no time in dragging him into the bank, which had a foreboding warning to thieves on the doors, and was made entirely of white marble. Harry quickly noticed the resemblance between the creatures, which Flitwick called goblins, and the professor himself. Harry wondered whether Flitwick was partially goblin, but decided against asking. If he was, it was the man's greatest Misery, and people generally didn't react well when Harry brought it up.

After a cart ride, he was shown the effects of tampering with vault security - a decade of rotting inside the vaults. Flitwick claimed that these vaults were the best protected place in the world, aside from Hogwarts itself. The goblin frowned at Flitwick and Harry noted very quickly that Flitwick must have once been a member of the goblin nation, judging from the natural responses to everything the goblins did.

Harry expected a small sack of bills in his vault, but was rather surprised to find mountains of gold. The goblin, Griphook, explained that the bronze knuts were twenty nine to a silver sickle, which were seventeen to a gold galleon.

Harry wondered if there was a magical significance behind those specific prime numbers, and asked. The professor and the goblin gave a fifteen minute joint lecture about a magical discipline known as Arithmancy, and by the end of it, Harry concluded that the numbers chosen were simply mathematically glorified good luck charms. He kept that particular observation to himself.

The first shop they visited, after Harry had withdrawn around a hundred galleons, was Ollivander's Fine Wands, founded in a time that Greek men debated on the stone steps of buildings in Athens. Harry noticed a low-powered, but highly sophisticated invisibility illusion on the wandmaker as he flashed his Eyes of Misery.

He walked up to the man, who seemed to be trying to sneaking around the cluttered desk with several woods and unfinished wands. "Hello, I'd like a wand please."

The man jumped, flickering into existence. Flitwick jumped too. The man, who Harry decided was Ollivander, looked as if he were about to squeak, then went straight to the wand selection process.

Harry tried wand after wand, while Ollivander snatched them away and grew more and more excited. Harry stayed calm the entire time, and fought the urge to burn the wand shop to the ground and take the wand which survived the conflagration.

After nearly an hour (according to the large grandfather clock on display in a timepiece store across the street), Ollivander gave him a wand that worked. Harry quickly paid the seven galleons, and walked out of the store at noon.

Flitwick squeaked. "Oh my. I promised Professor Dumbledore that I'd pick up a package for him at Gringotts! I had forgotten while explaining Arithmancy to you."

"Sorry, Professor."

"No no, my dear boy, I love to teach. Don't worry about it. If you're done with your shopping, you can go ahead and walk out of the Leaky Cauldron. Hold out your wand arm, and the Knight Bus will appear. For several sickles, they'll get you home. Remember, you cannot use your wand at home!"

"Thanks, Professor."

Harry spotted Quirrell walking up the street, and decided to engage the man in conversation. He could tell the man was impatient, so he did his best to stall the man with complicated questions that had simple answers, and open ended questions that led to a bunch of other questions, such as 'What type of magical creatures are out there?' or 'What's the difference between a curse and a charm?' In the heat of the moment, Quirrell forgot to continue stuttering, which Harry easily noticed.

He thanked the Professor and walked into the bookstore, Flourish and Blotts. He was on a mission.

He took out every spellbook he could see, from Magical Dueling, to Cooking Charms, to Hair Charms, and sat in an isolated corner. The stack of books was easily four feet high, containing nearly thirty books.

He activated his eyes, and began to leaf through the books, one page at a time, memorizing each page. No one noticed, as the owner and the assistant were busy with customers for nearly three hours.

After he finished the last book in his pile, 'Curses and Countercurses' by B. Whichhing, and feeling vaguely ill due to the long term usage of his Kaleidoscope, he wandered out of the bookstore with the books on the booklist that Flitwick had left with him.

He quickly bought the books on his list, and the various potion ingredients and attire.

He ducked into a quiet corner and began chanting quietly. "Misery is my curse. Misery is my curse. Misery is my curse." He felt himself squeeze through a dimensional rip.

"Home, sweet cupboard, Ovid", he muttered. The snake, preserved in death by his newly identified magic, stared back at him from where it rested in the broken crib with blank eyes.


	3. The Eyes of Hogwarts

**Chapter 3**

Author's Note: You might have noticed that I did a sort of double-chapter here.

**Kaleidoscope**

"Quiz me, mom!"

The eleven year old girl could only be described as precocious. Though she was content with 'genius' or 'extremely intelligent'.

"Very well, Hermione", Mrs. Granger sighed, and opened to a random page of _A Thousand and One Magical Herbs_.

After several minutes, Hermione grew impatient. "Did you know that the Headmaster of my school is Albus Dumbledore? He's won hundreds of awards, and is the most powerful wizard in the world. I'm going to be in the same year as Harry Potter too! He's supposed to have enough power to take on any dark wizard alive and win and he's going to be light years ahead of us because he's been killing dragons since he was seven and he's going to teach us a lot of very powerful magic because he's kind and generous and a true Gryffindor!"

Her mother smiled, and wondered if Hermione had been reading too many fantasy novels. "Hermione, no eleven year old boy has killed dragons. The general distribution of heroism is between the ages of sixteen and twenty nine."

Hermione shook her head and began to lecture about her newest hero.

**Kaleidoscope**

"I'm telling you, Albus, he's a shoo-in for my old house!" Flitwick bragged proudly.

"Surely you must be mistaken. Harry's parents were both-"

"No! He has all of Lily's inquisitiveness with none of the mischief! He listened patiently to a fifteen minute talk about Arithmancy from a vault goblin and myself, and asked questions that demonstrated his understanding of what we were saying. Most fifth years would have had trouble staying awake if I'd-"

"Very well, Filius", Dumbledore nodded. "The package?"

Flitwick put a small paper bag onto Dumbledore's desk. "Thank you, Filius. I must prepare now."

Flitwick left Dumbledore to his thoughts.

**Kaleidoscope**

Nearly two months had passed when the first of September dawned. Harry woke at six in the morning to a very persistent alarm clock, and the slight illusion he'd placed over his aunt forced her awake as well. There would be no excuses stemming from tiredness today. They would take him to King's Cross, and it was final.

"Why do you want to go to King's Cross of all places anyway, boy?" his Uncle wondered.

"School requires it." Harry was curt, and much less polite than usual.

"Watch your tone, boy." Harry narrowed his eyes, but didn't choose to speak. He pulled his trunk out of his cupboard and into Vernon's car.

"Dad, why does Harry get to go away to school?" Dudley whined.

"Because he's a freak", Petunia replied. Harry ignored them. If he didn't, they'd say worse and worse things, and he'd lose control. Then he'd probably damage them in some way, and would have to rely on dimensional rifts and a map to get to King's Cross, where he'd never been before. So he narrowed his eyes again instead.

Harry and Vernon arrived at King's Cross at nine in the morning, managing to evade the majority of the morning traffic. "Have fun finding Platform Nine and _Three Quarters_!" Vernon sneered nastily as Harry pulled his trunk free from the confines of the car.

Harry stood rather nonplussed between Platforms Nine and Ten. He stared at the brick support beams between the platforms and wondered if he had to tap three quarters of the bricks or something like it. He sighed, and his ears picked up on a very interesting conversation.

"So in the next two hours or so, Harry Potter will show up here, not knowing how to get onto the platform?"

"Yes, I need you to look for a bewildered looking lost boy with Lily's eyes, and possibly an owl. He's probably shorter than average, and very thin."

"Why would he be-"

"Don't worry about it, Molly. Just find a way to attract his attention, make sure he strikes up a friendship with Ron. There will be forces out there to corrupt the boy, and we can't have that."

Harry ducked behind a pillar very quickly and activated his eyes.

He looked around the corner, and realized that there was a gaping hole streaming magic from the pillar which the woman stood next to. The other speaker, possibly an older man, was gone. But he had probably been gone since Harry had heard the small pop.

A wave of commuters passed, and he joined the crowd. The woman wasn't paying much attention, opting to mumble about 'muggles'. Harry wondered what muggles were for a moment, then slipped past the woman, narrowly dodging her shockingly red hair, and passing the barrier easily.

A huge scarlet train was very suddenly visible. Harry shrugged and found a compartment near the middle of the train and tucked his trunk into the luggage hold. He sat down and stared down at the slowly milling people, memorizing every motion, every walk, gauging each face for intentions, and experiencing each Misery.

Time passed quickly, despite the fact that he perceived time sixteen times slower than it actually was - as more people appeared on the platform, the categorizing became more difficult, though he made sure to get profiles on each and every student, especially those who had no colors on their robes, or who looked particularly nervous. They would likely be in his year.

It was fantastic how little attention he attracted - his turned head gave an image of sleep, and his small stature and unruly hair marked him as someone shy, so the majority of the students passed him by.

When the clock struck eleven, a huge bunch of redheads rushed through the barrier. Harry pumped more magic into his eyes and forced himself to watch with more vigour than usual.

He quickly profiled them. The mother walked next to them, and seemed to be refraining from the impulse to hug her children. The two twin boys were _bouncing_, and seemed very happy for unknown reasons. The older boy was plain looking, prim and proper. The smaller boy seemed resentful of something, and the little girl looked ready to cry.

Harry closed his eyes in exhaustion. He had already expended a large amount of energy watching for the people who seemed to be new to the magical world, who generally showed up between ten and ten forty-five, unlike the more experienced, older students who showed up for the train just in time to meet their friends.

Harry snorted quietly and deactivated his eyes. He understood friends, alright. They were good to you, they were precious, but ultimately, they were taken away. His aunt Petunia had friends - until they offended her, or she them, in some way. Dudley had friends, but they didn't even like each other - they had only shared a temporary truce in order to pick on those younger than them. Vernon had friends, but they were just business associates whom he plastered a fake smile on for.

The true problem was that with the Eyes of Misery, even the most beautiful of things became ugly for him. He realized that the majority of people hid disgusting thoughts that were only visible under the red haze of Misery. They didn't truly have friends. He had a friend once but, two months ago, his friend was destroyed. And it was his fault. If Dudley had a pet snake, Petunia would feed it, not knife it. He had forced himself not to bring Ovid along with him to Hogwarts.

Harry began crying, and the Kaleidoscope activated again. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, then realized that he was crying blood.

He narrowed his eyes slightly and quickly cast an illusion over his face with the help of his left eye, and wiped away the blood with a tissue.

The train had begun moving long ago, and it rocked for a moment when the door to the compartment slid open.

"Has anyone seen a toad? A boy named Neville has- oh. There's only one person in here, silly me, have you seen a toad though, because Neville has lost one and I promised to help him find it, and I would really appreciate it if-"

"Quiet down" Harry said absentmindedly, wiping away the last of the blood.

"Oh my god, you're bleeding, are you okay, where have you been bleeding from, I can't see anything on your face but-"

"I'm bleeding from the ears", Harry said, rather coldly. "And no, I have not seen a toad named Neville, or any toad at all." Harry adjusted his hair, which had fallen in front of his right eye.

"Oh my god, you're Harry Potter! You're in-"

"A whole lot of fiction stories at the bookstore."

"Not just fiction books! You're in-"

"Spare me."

Hermione blushed, and an awkward silence commenced.

"Aren't you going to ask me for my name?"

"If you insist", Harry sighed. "What's your name?"

"I'm Hermione Granger, and I'm muggleborn. I'm from-"

"Thank you for telling me your name."

"Can't you just be a little bit cooperative? I'm new to the Wizarding world, and, and, and you're Harry _Potter_, you've clearly been raised to be a great wizard all your-"

"Make no assumptions and you will offend no one." The room temperature dropped twenty degrees. Hermione shivered.

"Anyway. It was nice meeting you!" she squeaked, and left as quickly as she came in.

Unfortunately, a group of wandering redheads heard her exclaim "Harry Potter!" very loudly, and they rushed into the compartment. Harry glared at a faraway tree.

"Blimey! Is the great-"

"Harry Potter truly-"

"In this compartment?"

"Who's that?" Harry bit out sarcastically.

"I'm Fred", claimed the boy on the right.

"And I'm George", claimed the boy on the left. They were identical twins.

"We're the Weasleys", they chorused.

"And I'm Ron", claimed a huff and puffing boy behind them. He had no house colors, so Harry assumed that he was also a First Year.

Harry didn't respond, opting to judge them silently. Apparently, they were supposed to find him and befriend him. He narrowed his eyes for what must have been the eighth or ninth time in the past three hours, and let the silence fill the room.

After two minutes (Harry counted the seconds), he nodded. "Okay."

He had used the most dismissive tone he could muster - it was akin to funeral bells, tolling and knelling the currency of finality.

"We're going to go see Lee's tarantula now, Ron." The twins seemed to have heard the dismissal, but Ron was as dumb as bricks. He sat down, completely oblivious to Harry, who was as close to fuming as he had ever been.

"So, can I see your s-"

"No."

"But-"

"Asking to see people's body parts is both invasive and rude."

That silenced the boy. He sat there awkwardly as Harry gazed out the window. Nearly fifteen minutes later, the compartment door slid open again. It took all of Harry's mental faculties to suppress the groan bubbling up from within him.

"The word is that Harry Potter is in this train compartment." The blond boy who had apparated with his father into the Platform as if he owned it was now in the doorway. Harry may have been new to the Wizarding World, but even he realized that such an apparition must have been intensely rude. After all, why were apparition points set up if they weren't to be used?

"That's him." Ron pointed at Harry, who didn't even turn around.

"You, wake up!" Harry turned around slowly, and affixed his (once again) narrowing eyes on the newcomer.

"I'm Malfoy. Draco Malfoy." Ron snorted. Harry stared impassively.

"Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who _you_ are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

Harry, predictably, narrowed his eyes. He enjoyed a good insult as much as anyone else, but this boy just rubbed him the wrong way.

"You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there." Malfoy held out a hand with perfectly manicured nails.

Harry stared at the hand impassively and at the boy. The Weasley seemed to be very tense, hoping he wouldn't accept the handshake, and Harry nearly shook the boy's hand on principle, but he decided that there was a chance that he'd despise this boy much more than he hated Weasley.

He decided to lie. He yawned convincingly. "I don't know what's going on. My uncle brought me to King's Cross several hours ago, and everyone's been so loud I've barely gotten a wink of sleep. Can you both _leave_?" He layered the word with a compulsion, his left eye flashing red for a moment.

The two boys smiled, looking mildly dazed, and left. Harry slammed the door and stared out the window. He wondered if his actions qualified as brooding, but dismissed it in favor of reprocessing everything he'd seen that day.

**Kaleidoscope**

A seventh year girl from Hufflepuff house, decked in robes with yellow trimmings, walked slowly through the single, long corridor on the Hogwart's Express. She had been already accepted into Unspeakable and Auror training, despite being a year younger than all the other prospective candidates.

The fact was, she owed it all to someone she didn't even know.

She didn't know if he was a wizard or a muggle, or even a werewolf. He had moved so fast that she doubted, from her Occlumenic reviews of the memory, that she could match him even now. All she remembered was his dark hair, and those beautiful, spinning red eyes.

He had killed all four of them when they caught her without a wand. So she knew she had to become stronger. Because she would likely never see him again. She had no doubt that the kills were a sacrifice to the boy. The look of hurt in his eyes, the anguish over killing a fellow human being was burned into her memory, Occlumency or not.

She had moved soon afterwards, in an attempt to get on with her life, but her only closure came from brutal training. She knew she was still scarred. She had never felt graceful again, tripping over the hem of her robes, or walking into solid objects as her mind wandered. She promised herself that she'd match him one day, and on that day, she'd be herself again.

**Kaleidoscope**

By the time the train ground to a halt, Harry had actually fallen asleep for nearly three hours, in his school robes. Hermione came by again, nearly telling him that he should change into his school robes, but realized that he was already dressed. She quickly left, but Harry woke up anyway. His ears were rather sensitive.

Harry was advised by a passing prefect to leave his trunk in place. He nodded once, and exited the train.

"Firs' years o'er here!" A huge man was bellowing at the top of his lungs. He had a huge shaggy beard and hair that seemed to be joined to his beard. The candlelight reflected off of his huge round face, and his black eyes, which Harry decided were warm and inviting.

"No more than four to a boat!" The man had guided them to the edge of a lake.

Harry climbed into a boat rather gracefully, and decided that watching his various classmates struggle to get on, splashing each other, and throwing up from the incessant rocking, was intensely funny. Ron Weasley was making a beeline toward him, so he shifted his center of gravity a bit. As Ron threw an enthusiastic leg into the boat, the boat bounced, and it flipped him face first into the cold, cold lake.

Hermione Granger decided that she would try to talk to Harry Potter again, and delicately stepped into his boat, sitting down next to him. He ignored her entirely. She took a deep breath, and mustered her courage. "Hello!"

"Hey, Hermione!" Neville literally jumped into the boat. Hermione sighed as she was hit by a slight wave of water, and her hair frizzled - more than it usually did, giving it a bushy appearance. Harry was entirely dry, even as she dripped.

Neville, too, had fallen into the water. He and Ron, who was thrashing like a dying man, helped each other out of the water, and they both attempted to get onto the boat, with much more care than they did before. Harry sighed, and decided that getting rid of them, or jumping over them, would attract too much unwanted attention, and proceeded to ignore the rest of them as they made small talk. He decided he made a great elephant in his corner.

The boats began to move, magically, across the waters. Harry flashed his Kaleidoscope, and studied the strands of magic that allowed them to sail themselves. He discovered that it was a relatively simple enchantment.

"Once we round this bend, we'll see Hogwarts!" Ron exclaimed, echoing Hagrid, and trying, for the eight unsuccessful time, to draw Harry into conversation.

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Aren't you going to introduce yourself to Neville?"

"If you're going to bother me about it." Harry took a deep breath. "Hello Neville. My name is Harry."

"Hi Harry!" Neville spoke loudly, and timidly, creating a strange dichotomy that gave Harry the impression of a very large mouse. "I'm Neville Longbottom. I didn't quite catch your last name."

"He's Harry Potter."

"You're _the_ Harry Potter?" Neville stared, bug-eyed.

"I generally don't refer to myself as _the_ Harry Potter, but yes."

"My gran says..."

Harry immediately shut his ears off, and pretended to hear only the sound of the sloshing waters. He was saved by the sight of Hogwarts looming over them. He stared at the castle for a moment, and flashed his Eyes of Misery. Each block, each stone, was laced with magic, some still and deep, others light and playful, and still others that gave the impression of a million different moods and power.

The chattering intensified, and exclamations of shock were heard. Harry opted instead to examine the castle in greater detail with his Kaleidoscope. As they approached the entrance, Harry deactivated his eyes, and his gaze fell on a fellow first year who was being attacked by a large tentacle.

"Heads down!" Hagrid shouted over the din, but he was the only one who really had to duck, as the boats glided into a long underground tunnel. They stopped next to what seemed to be an underground harbor, and with each flash of his eyes, Harry could see the pebbles littering the ground, the bits of ivy in Hagrid's hair, and the twisting magic that surrounded each of his classmates. A middle-aged woman, or so it seemed, stood at a doorway, clearly another Professor.

While Flitwick had a much larger amount of magic than him, Harry was proud to notice that the divide between the woman's magic and his was not wide, and would be easily bridged. The discrepancy between the amount of magic he had compared to hie fellow first years seemed to be on the same order of magnitude as the difference between his and Flitwick's. He had no doubt that Flitwick was not the strongest teacher in the school.

The professor introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, their Transfiguration teacher, and began talking at length about the different houses, giving the most generic information she could, in such a way that a brochure would have laughed. Harry noticed a slight expression of loathing when she said Slytherin, though no one without his eyes would have spotted it.

This was in stark contrast to the Malfoy boy, who began bragging about how he was going to be put into Slytherin as soon as McGonagall was out of earshot. Harry listened, but only because he couldn't think of anything better to do, and the proclamations of arrogance did seem a bit more intelligent than the wrestling of trolls, which Ron Weasley had decided would be the Sorting Test.

They were called into the room, and they stood in a line as a dirty, disgusting hat, of all things, sang a song.

Harry's Kaleidoscope spun wildly as he systematically judged each student and teacher's response to different statements the hat made about houses. When it was done singing, Professor McGonagall announced that each student would, when called, come up to the front of the room, the 'Sorting Hat' would be placed on their head, and it would then announce their House. She then started to read names from a sheet of parchment, beginning with "Abbott, Hannah!".

Uninterested in the Sorting of the other students, Harry looked at Dumbledore and blanched. The man had more magic than every other person in the room combined. Harry decided that he would be the one that he'd aim to surpass.

"Granger, Hermione!"

The bushy haired girl was seated under the Sorting Hat for nearly five minutes, the longest time yet. Harry stared impassively as the hat finally shouted out, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Hermione looked inordinately pleased with herself. Harry continued to examine the many contours of the magic in the room, and how certain magical presences seemed to bleed into each other. He could feel the stare of a man dressed completely in black on him. He wondered if the professor taught curses or malicious spells.

"Greengrass, Daphne!" Harry stared at the girl, who was blond and had a substantial amount of magic in comparison to the other First Years in the room. After a minute of consideration, the Hat shouted, "SLYTHERIN!"

Harry narrowed his eyes.

"Longbottom, Neville!"

Neville, the clumsy boy with the toad, was seated even longer under the Sorting Hat than Hermione. When it finally called, "GRYFFINDOR", Harry noticed that McGonagall seemed to be very happy. Dumbledore beamed the entire time.

A pair of twins were called, another girl was Sorted into Slytherin, then, at long last, "Potter, Harry!"

The room fell silent. It seemed to be a recapitulation of the Leaky Cauldron. Harry's eyes flashed through the crowd, but he didn't dare activate them.

He sat on the stool, and the hat slipped over his eyes, and he saw nothing but darkness.

_What do we have here? A child who has the greater eyes of Misery?_

_What are you doing in my head? Get out!_

_Calm yourself, Harry Potter. I am here to sort you._

_Can you see my memories?_

_Yes, every one of them_.

Harry sucked in a breath. _Will this go back to any of the teachers?_

_No, my charms make it impossible for me to be influenced, or mined for information by anyone, until your death_.

_But charms can be broken, right? How do I know you're not lying?_

_I can swear it to you, on the magic that made me._

_Sure, do it._

_Ahh, yes, not very trusting, are you? Very well. I swear on my magic that I am incapable of lying. _A blue light shone in front of Harry's eyes for a moment.

_You know about my eyes. Tell me, does anyone else carry my curse?_

_You are wise, Harry Potter, to know that those eyes are a curse. Through my time sorting children, only eighteen have had the potential to possess the Eyes of Misery. Only eight have come to me with active Eyes. Of those, only two had more than a single Mark in each eye. None however have ever come to me with the Eyes of Treason, the eyes of those who carry with them the greatest of tragedies._

_So these are the Eyes of Treason._

_Yes, you have suffered more than most, less than some, and all too much for someone your age. The Eyes are terrible things, are they not? To see the flaws, imperfections, and shortcomings in every wise man, in every beautiful woman, in every gentle soul?_

_It is a unique burden._

_A burden it is indeed. Promise an old hat that you'll go blind in peace._

_What do you mean, go blind?_

_Don't you know? Have you not felt your eyes bleeding?_

_How did you know? Aside from my memories, I mean._

_I have seen many things in my day. A friend of the man who created me possessed the Eyes of Misery for many years, when he decided that it was simply not enough. So one day, when the woman he loved the most - a kind, caring woman - went out to collect herbs to grow, he followed her and took his sword to her, knowing that he'd have the right to your Kaleidoscope. His was different from yours._

_But, blindness?_

_In order of difficulty, the great and terrible power of the Eyes of Treason are that of the Flames that Cut the Flow. You seem to have accessed more than that, however. He never put me on nearabout the end. From what I've seen, you are capable of some sort of Space-Time Divinity with your left Eye._

_What are the Fl-_

_I will explain it to you, young warrior. The Flames that Cut the Flow will destroy anything it touches._

_Are there drawbacks to using such power?_

_You will damage your eyes with each use until you are finally blind._

Harry narrowed his eyes. _But how long will it be until I go blind?_

_It can be many years, if you use your power sparingly. Your eyes will slowly repair themselves after a while of disuse, but continual usage over a short period of time will damage them to such a degree that the simple activation of the Eyes of Treason will cause blindness._

_Will the use of the Kaleidoscope, without any of the Great Powers, cause blindness?_

_No._

_I suppose I will be using the Kaleidoscope without any qualms then. How can I stop myself from going blind?_

The hat was silent for a moment. "GRYFFINDOR!"

Harry nodded once within the hat, and thanked it, then pulled it off. The cheering had begun once the hat had shouted, and the Weasley twins were rancorously shouting "We've got Potter!" over and over again.

Harry resolved to use the Divinity of Space-Time sparingly and the Flames under extreme circumstances.

"Weasley, Ronald!"

The Hat had barely touched the boy's head when it shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

After an Italian-looking girl was sorted, Dumbledore spoke for several moments about the Forbidden Forest, and told the captive audience not to wander into the abandoned third-floor corridor on the pain of death, then the Welcoming Feast began.

**Kaleidoscope**

Harry woke early the next morning, and walked through the halls with a cap over his eyes to not have his eyes spotted by talking portraits and ghosts. He had memorized the route to the Entrance Hall from the Gryffindor common room with the use of his eyes, and decided that he'd catalogue every corridor and room he could. He spent the next two hours walking through the second, third, and fourth floors of the castle, slowly.

The castle was huge. Hogwarts used only the North Wing for academic purposes, abandoning the East, West and South wings to dust and grime. Harry glanced at his battered watch every so often, but his perception of time was much more keen than most people much older than he. He filed away the location of several rooms for further consideration - an armory full of hundreds of magical weapons that hadn't felt a strong breeze in centuries, a swimming pool with runes inscribed all over the edge and bottom. There was a room full of books on Conjuration, stacked haphazardly all over the floor. But for every useful room, there were scores of rooms full of broken desks, empty bookshelves, and belligerent magical dragonflies, the size of Harry's arm, which attacked him.

Harry walked into one room that had a huge nest of them before he snapped, took out his wand, and attempted to mimic the effects of the Flames that Cut the Flow with his wand. He ended up with a spell that allowed his wand to belch fire endlessly, as long as he fed more and more magic to it. He torched up the creatures, which flew around, burning.

Harry ended up stomping out more than one fire before all the creatures had died.

He headed to the Great Hall after that and stared impassively at the breakfast, laid out on four tables, and the single other person in the room.

Hermione Granger. Harry sighed, and sat down two seats to the left of her, and began eating breakfast slowly. After a minute, she squeaked out a quick, "Hello Harry!"

Harry ignored her. Then he remembered his manners. "Hello, Hermione."

"May I sit next to you?"

"I don't mind." In truth, he did. But he wasn't going to let her know that. He strove to be polite to even his Aunt and Uncle, and he would not abandon his habits for an eleven year old girl he didn't know.

"Do you know what class we're going to have first?"

"Herbology on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. Charms on Tuesday mornings. Transfiguration on Tuesday afternoons. Astronomy on Wednesdays at midnight. History of Magic on Monday afternoons. Defense Against the Dark Arts on Wednesday afternoons. Potions on Friday mornings and afternoons, with no lunch, but it starts an hour later and ends an hour earlier."

"Oh, so we'll be having Charms and Transfiguration today! I can't wait! I've read through both the textbooks, and Charms sounds easier than Transfiguration, but Transfiguration is so much more versatile."

Harry didn't want to talk with the girl, but he hated academic inaccuracy. "That's not entirely true. Charms may be easier in the beginning compared to Transfiguration, unless you have a seriously powerful imagination, but the difficulty of Transfiguration levels out when you reach the hard limits of the craft, while Charms continually gets more and more difficult. You can compare them as exponential and linear operations. While Transfiguration may be more difficult in the beginning, the growth in difficulty is static, unlike the growth of Charms, which is dynamic."

"Fifteen points to Gryffindor for a well reasoned explanation!" cried a beaming Flitwick, who had walked into the room just as Hermione decided that Transfiguration was more versatile.

Harry gave a very convincing fake smile at Flitwick, and thanked him. "Oh no, there's no need to thank me, my boy! I love a good academic discussion as much as any Ravenclaw! I thought that I would certainly have you in my house, but both Albus and the Sorting Hat disagreed." Flitwick's grin slipped for a moment, then it returned at full force. "I look forward to seeing you in class this morning!"

Hermione stared at Harry with stars in her eyes.

Harry's politeness slipped for a moment, and his lips turned downwards.

**Kaleidoscope**

Flitwick started the class with roll call, and smiled at Harry when he called his name. Harry nodded politely at the wizard. He began talking at length about Charms from his personal experience, which Harry thought was much more useful than any of the books he'd technically stolen with his eyes, or the book he'd purchased. He watched with his Eyes as Flitwick demonstrated several charms and, after he asked to be excused to use a bathroom, found that he had the ability to cast those charms with ease. He smiled.

Halfway through the lesson, Ron Weasley and Neville Longbottom burst into the room, both of them sopping wet, and nearly in tears, screaming about the resident school Poltergeist, Peeves. He immediately plopped into the seat to the left of Harry (Hermione was on the right side), getting water everywhere.

"Why are you always dripping over me, Weasley?" Harry mumbled, mostly to himself, but Flitwick had stopped lecturing to write on the board, and it was entirely silent. Consequently, the entire room heard him, and chuckles broke out. Ron's face turned as red as his hair, which seemed to be no easy feat, and he stopped moving around.

After Charms ended, Hermione latched herself onto Harry's arm, but quickly let go when he raised an eyebrow at her. They walked to the Great Hall at a relatively slow pace, with Hermione babbling about how amazing Professor Flitwick was, and how much she enjoyed the Charms lesson. Harry privately agreed. Flitwick was a very good teacher, able to galvanize and control a class without seeming strict. He seemed to know every charm in the world, and he taught in such a way that allowed Harry to take comprehensive notes and memorize them with his eyes.

Harry's face remained impassive, but he was secretly ecstatic. He had discovered that while knowing each charm that Flitwick described, and hundreds of other spells, he was not able to perform a single one of them. But now, after he had seen them in action, he was able to do so easily. Coupled with his memorized understanding, his charms were picture-perfect.

After lunch was done with (an affair full of both Hermione's continuous speech and a Ron who did not realize that he was unwelcome), Hermione followed him to the Transfiguration classroom, where a tabby cat was perched on the professor's desk.

Harry frowned. He had seen the tabby cat before. When he was five, it had been in the park at Little Whinging. When he was nine, it had been in an alley. Harry wondered if the cat, who could only be Professor McGonagall, knew about his eyes, then decided that it wasn't possible. While cat eyes could see very well in the dark, they lost the ability to discern color with complete accuracy.

Harry found himself locked into a staring match with it. Both gazes were impassive, but he could feel her giving up. No one had ever been a match for him in a staring contest, but he thought that Professor Dumbledore would possibly be a challenge.

Finally, Ron and Neville burst into the room, ten minutes late. Harry had copied the notes on the board by flashing his Eyes when McGonagall wasn't looking at him, and into his notebook. He had stared at the scratching quills and parchment with no small amounts of bemusement, and the few sensible people with pens and lined paper, before deciding that there was something seriously backwards about Hogwarts.

"Thank god she's not here!" Ron exclaimed. He did a little spin in joy.

"Is that so, Mr. Weasley?" McGonagall had shed her cat form, and was glaring at Ron.

Ron gulped and turned around. He glared at Hermione for a moment, for stealing the seat next to Harry, and plopped down next to Neville, jotting notes down furiously, blushing.

McGonagall taught in a somewhat similar manner to Flitwick, but she relied on more theoretical explanations, as opposed to personal anecdote, and awesome displays of technique. Harry was lucky enough to have been flashing his Kaleidoscope when she turned her desk into a pig, and allowed himself to smile. McGonagall caught the smile, and smiled back, encouragingly. She then looked away in disappointment when his features became blank once again.

When the lesson ended, Harry had managed to teach Neville Longbottom how to turn his match into a needle, after he completed the task in 'record time'.

Harry heard snatches of conversation he disliked very much from most of the people in the hallway as he shook loose Hermione, and therefore had no constant noise in his right ear.

"Look, that's Harry Potter!"

"He's so cold and distant. It's so tragic."

"He's so awesome. He managed to change his match into a needle on his first go. My brother told me."

"He must have had magical training, or he's a genius."

"He's so cute."

Harry's nostrils flared, and he walked a bit faster, a scowl finding its way to his face, despite his best efforts.

"He's finally ditched that Granger girl. I hope he doesn't mind if I approached him."

Harry was currently seated on a windowsill doing his transfiguration essay, when he heard _that_. He sighed, and began working twice as fast, hoping to finish before the girls got the courage to approach someone they didn't know.

"Hey! I'm Susan Bones!" A redheaded girl who was in Hufflepuff, judging by her colors, thrust her undeveloped chest forward, and batted her eyelashes in the most forced fashion Harry had ever seen. And he remembered every single batting pair of eyelashes he'd ever seen.

"Hello." The girl giggled and ran away. Harry quickly added the finishing touches to his essay, and left.

Defense Against the Dark Arts sounded great in theory, but Quirrell was, simply put, a bad teacher. He stuttered (unconvincingly) whether he spoke of vampires, his purported 'great fear', or tickling hexes. Harry felt a strange, prickling sensation in his scar every time the man looked at him, and decided to file that away for consideration before he slept.

It was Friday morning when Harry nearly suffered from cardiac arrest. Everyone in the school was referring to him as the Gryffindor Prince.

"He's so regal and graceful!"

"Do you see the way he glides? It's like he's been trained to duel or something!"

Sadly, both statements came from fifth year Ravenclaws.

He sat, fuming, in Potions class, when the door swung open with a bang, and Professor Snape walked into the room. His cloak billowed behind him, making him look like a cardinal of old. His image of nobility, however, was ruined by the dirty stains on the front of his robes, his oily hair, and his overly large hooked nose that dripped.

He began his class with a roll call, and paused at Harry's name. "Ah, Yes. Harry Potter, our new _celebrity_."

Harry stared at him impassively, and he felt a sort of invading presence emanating from the man. He broke eye contact, and it stopped immediately. Snape grit his teeth, and finished his roll call.

"I see you've gotten rather... _comfortable_ in your current seats. There will be no unnecessary _deep friendships_ or fooling around in my classroom. Granger, switch seats with Greengrass. Crabbe, switch seats with Longbottom. Finnegan, switch seats with Parkinson."

The blond girl with more magic than every other First Year but Harry sat daintily in the seat next to Harry. "You will not slow me down, Potter."

She was curt, and to the point. Harry decided that he liked that, and offered her the same courtesy. "Very well."

"Potter!" Snape called out. "Talking in my class already?"

"I apologize."

"You are here, to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

Harry decided that it was a rather impressive speech, and nodded. Hermione nearly stood up, as fire seemed to course through her. She looked completely ready to prove that either she wasn't a dunderhead, or she was a very, very unintelligent one. Harry thought it would be the former.

"Potter!" Snape hissed. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

_Asphodel is generally used in conjunction with wormwood to temper the acidic agent associated with the potion known as the Draught of Living Death, which..._

"A buffer solution that will, when combined with an acidic agent, can be used to create the Draught of Living Death."

Snape stared at him, long and hard. "Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

_The bezoar is a stone from the stomach of a goat that will cure the majority of poisons in the world. The uses in potionmaking include..._

"The stomach of a goat."

Snape narrowed his eyes. "What is the difference, Potter, between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?"

_Wolfsbane, used in several highly dangerous potions, is a poison known as Monkshood, and, when processed, Aconite. The uses of Aconite are more diverse than..._

"They are one and the same. If it is processed, it gains a third moniker, Aconite."

Snape exhaled in frustration. "Tell me, Potter, what are the uses of Nitric Acid in potion-making."

_One must be careful to never utilize nitric acid instead of sulfuric acid in this potion, as nitric acid will melt most cauldrons. Another property of nitric acid is that of magical neutralization, which will make most ingredients less effective..._

"Nitric acid can be used to remove volatility from a system. This decrease can stabilize most failed potions which have reached critical points-"

"Enough! Five points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all!"

Harry nodded, and continued to stare impassively.

The lesson continued, as Snape wrote instructions on how to create a boil-reducing potion on the board. Greengrass looked at Harry in grudging respect.

"I thought you'd be an airhead."

"I see."

She seemed to be miffed by his lack of reaction. "You don't have to be so cold."

For some reason, that maddened Harry a lot more than Snape did. He felt his maturity disappear completely, and he muttered, "you started it", with mild resentment.

She smirked at him, waiting for him to begin talking to her, but it simply didn't happen.

He simply cut everything perfectly, took Snape's abuse without as much as raising an eyebrow, and left at record speeds after Snape dismissed them.

Daphne Greengrass stared at his retreating back. "There is one _massive_ stick up his ass."

**Kaleidoscope**

Harry was in the armory again, attempting to find a weapon that suited him. He had been in there for nearly an hour, and had a small pile of possible choices.

There was a long, thin rapier which seemed to have a sort of affinity for lightning, shocking the practice dummy that Harry stabbed.

There were a pair of knives that seemed to burn whatever he slashed, and split whatever he stabbed.

There was a rather exotic knife that Harry didn't know the name of that seemed to fit well in his hand.

But they were all dwarfed by a longsword sitting in the corner, gathering dust. Harry was immediately drawn to it. When he put his hand on it, it began to speak.

"_Filthy humansssss. Daring to defile me._"

"_A talking sword?_"

"_You sssspeak the tongue of snakes?_"

"_No. I don't understand you at all. I'm making up hisses as I go along, and I'm hoping that you like me._"

"_You're very much like him_."

"_Who?_"

"_Salazar. When he stole me from the palace of Sujin_,_ he was in possession of my greatest enemy, and wielded the pair of us with equal ability_."

"_What sword is your greatest enemy_?" Harry was guessing it was a sword.

"_The Totsuka of Susano'o_."

"_In English?_"

"_The Ten Hands Longsword of the Storm God."_

"_Where is the sword now?" _Harry asked.

"_It is within the Mangekyo Sharingan, drawn from a jar of Sake."_

"_Go on, continue speaking in another language."_

"_The Kaleidoscopic Copy-Eye Wheel, the spinning red-and-black of Treason, the-"_

"_There are no _swords_ in my eyes."_

The sword hissed. "_You are within the possession of the Kaleidoscope? You lie. You are but a hatchling_."

Harry narrowed his eyes. _"I do not lie, Snake-sword."_

"_I am not the Snake-sword", _it hissed, "_I am the Kusanagi, the Grass-cutting Longsword!"_

Harry stared at the sword for a moment. "_Would you allow me to wield you?_"

The Kusanagi was silent for several seconds. "_I still do not know if you're worthy..."_

"_How would I prove my worth?"_

"_I have not seen the flames of the Morning Light in very many years. Will you allow me to-_"

"What qualities are worth the damage to my eyes?"

"_I am able to cut through anything that does not match my power. If you cut but do not kill, my poison will render the victim paralyzed for an hour and dead in the next. I will cut even souls if you have the ability to free them from a body._"

Harry stared impassively, thinking, then decided. "Burn!"

The sword burned and burned - the black Flames that Cut the Flow ripping at the sword's enchantments, but it did not break. Harry bled from his right eye a substantial amount of black blood.

"_That was truly her Flame. Very well, boy. I will give you the right to wield me. But you must never allow me to leave your presence. And if I leave my sheath, something must pass on_."

"_Do you mean that you must kill something every time you're used?_"

"_Only if I leave my sheath._"

Harry wondered what his Professors would think of him when he walked into class carrying a sword of all things on Monday.

He also wondered about the other name for his Eyes, Mangekyo Sharingan.


	4. I'm going back on my word

I've come to a decision y'all.

I think most of you will like it, actually.

I'm abandoning The Kaleidoscope...

So I can go back to writing Chapter 40 of the Wizard of the Kaleidoscope.

Honestly, the only thing I learned in the past several days from the rewrite was that by the very nature of this story, it's only going to be, at best, a guilty-pleasure kind of fic for the folks over at DLP.

So here's the conundrum. I want to write Kaleidoscope, and I want to write something that will make me proud of my own writing.

Therefore, I pulled Resonance, and I'll be working on that as well as Kaleidoscope.

Actually. Second revision is here.

I will continue the rewrite of this, but it'll only be posted on DLP in the WbA. Meanwhile... 2k daily chapters will be on the menu again... I just realized that I spend maybe 7 hours a day playing a shitty FPS and on places like Tumblr and Facebook. I can be writing instead.


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